


Fey and Feral

by Warpony



Series: Feral Echoes [28]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Feral, Gen, Implied Asexual Characters, Love, M/M, Napping, Platonic Love, Platonic Romance, Platonic Soulmates, Soldier Boys, Xhorhouse (Critical Role), ace - Freeform, fairytales - Freeform, fey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-15
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:15:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25907197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Warpony/pseuds/Warpony
Summary: "They're really, really in love. Aren't they? Like the kind fairytales are about?" Jester asked, carefully peeking at Beau from the corner of her eye. "Do you think so?"
Relationships: Verin Thelyss/Original Character(s)
Series: Feral Echoes [28]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1711534
Comments: 2
Kudos: 27





	Fey and Feral

"Jess." Beau whispered loudly, poking the cleric in the shoulder.. "Jessie... Jester-"

"What Beau?" The tiefling cleric looked up towards her from where she was scribbling in her journal. 

Beau smirked and leaned back, jerking a thumb back over her shoulder. "Is this the cutest fucking thing you've ever seen or what?"

Jester leaned over and quickly muffled a happy squeak. Her eyes flicked back and forth between the scene in the corner and Beau. The monk looked a mix between smug and pleased. 

"Ohmygosh!" 

"I know right?" Beau clapped her hand over her mouth as she laughed softly. "So cute."

Jester bounced up and scurried off, disappearing up the stairs to their room. She wasn't gone long before she came skipping back. Beau recognized the journal the cleric was hugging to her chest. The familiar painted green, heart shaped leaves and blue flowers on the front that Jester had added herself to the journal that was steadily filling up with the stories Brunnera told. 

She flipped through the pages. Beau was a bit surprised at how full the journal was getting. It was nearly halfway before Jester found a blank page to work on. She immediately started sketching, her eyes jumping up every few seconds. 

On the other side of the Happy Room Brunnera and Verin had fallen asleep in a pile of blankets and pillows. 

The bay roan and blue furred firbolg fighter was stretched out on his back, chest rising and falling in steady, slow breath. His ear or the blue plumed end of his tail flicked or his bovine nose wrinkling in a soft snort occasionally, as if shooing an insect away. 

Brunnera's head was cushioned on Verin's hip and belly. In turn Verin had curled himself around the firbolg; the Echo Knight was practically tucked into the crook of the fighter's neck and under his chin, the back of his head pillowed on Brunnera's collarbone. Brunnera's steady breath ruffling the drow's hair on the exhale. 

A moment of refined peace and repose. Intimate but fearlessly so for veteran soldiers to have felt the safety and surety of the company of each other and those around them. A few stolen moments of tranquility for two creatures wrought by war and combat but not yet hardened by it. 

Brunnera gave a deep sigh, yawning widely so his lion like teeth showed for a moment before shuffling a little, trying to get closer to his partner in his sleep. One arm dragging up lazily from his side until it was curled protectively around Verin's back and fingers loosely tangled in Verin's sweater. He settled back into sleep again without having come fully awake.

Jester sketched away, rushing to mark out the outlines and a few major details, afraid the couple would move or wake up but slowed down to take her time with the drawing when it was mostly blocked out.

Beau shifted to lay out on her stomach, clutching a pillow under her head and watching them with a content smile before going back to the book she'd been reading. She felt Jester shuffle around so the tiefling was leaning a bit against the monk's side while she sketched. 

"Beau?"

"Hmm?"

"They're really, really in love. Aren't they? Like the kind fairytales are about?" Jester asked, carefully peeking at Beau from the corner of her eye. "Do you think so?"

Beau was quiet for a moment. Studying the couple across from them. They were so different from each other, everything about them clashed and should by all means have left them at odds if not actual enemies. 

Verin was highborn from a well off family. He was elegant and groomed for society. Voracious for life and dazzlingly charismatic. He charmed everyone around him effortlessly and easily. But still carried a shade of mystery and aloofness that gave him all the appearance and acceptance as a socialite. Verin could walk into the Dwendalian throne room and win over even the hard, bigoted heart of King Bertrand and his court. He was a celebrated leader and hero, handsome and desirable, so very ethereal. Finer featured and classically Drow petite and lithe. Liken to elfin princes that lore said came to the material realm to steal away some poor mortal's soul or free will. 

Enslavement had raised Brunnera. He'd learned all his lessons of the world and those in it from the weight of roughly smelt weapons in his hands, pain in his body and the burn of gravel and sand grit biting into his flesh. The harshness of raw violence had broken his mind as much as his body, rendering him mute or afflicted at the best of times. A deep set of instincts drove him instead of a code of rules and societal manners. Survival had been his singular focus for most of his life, he'd been made into an engine of combat and death. Brunnera was primeval. A giant frame, heavy limbed, and roughly hewn in the way civilized, sentient creatures hadn't been in millennia.

Verin was fey. Brunnera was feral. 

Everything about them opposed the other. Even their physical selves were drastically different. Verin was so easily dwarfed compared to Brunnera's immense build, and paired together that difference seemed to be even more exaggerated. The fighter more colossal and the knight more miniature. 

But all of that was external. The things the world saw and assumed. Beau and the rest of the Nein knew that Verin and Brunnera were two sides of the same coin. Amongst themselves they were quiet and reserved, serene and unflappable in a family that was undoubtedly chaos personified. They were humble, brushing away compliments or attention; delightfuly doting not just on each other but all the Nein. Deeply compassionate and empathetic to anyone and everyone around them. When anyone hurt they suffered right along with them. The effortless devotion to the Nein and to each other was ironclad and unshakeable. 

Two creatures. One soul. 

"Jess yanno those stories about how some dipshit princess decides to marry some hero but the king or whatever says he has to prove his worth. So he gets sent out to slay a monster or something?" 

"Yeah?"

"I think their fairy tale is kinda like if the hero fell in love with the monster instead. Cause the monster was a really cool guy just hanging out in the woods or a ruined castle or something and didn't care about anybody having to prove themselves. Cause love isn't supposed to be earned, yanno? So... I think its like... better fairy tales kind of love. Real, actual love. That's what fairy tales _should_ be like."

Jester hummed softly, a sound Beau knew meant she was mulling something over. "... they don't kiss or anything."

Beau cocked ber head curiously. "What do you mean?"

"They don't have sex or anything. I know that for a fact. I know what its supposed to sound like through walls. They don't do it." Jester said matter-of-factly. 

Beau had to press her face into a pillow and bite down to keep from laughing or sighing. She lifted her head once she had control again. "No, Jess. I meant why are you concerned about it?"

"Well... I mean... I've seen Verin give Brunny a kiss on the cheek a couple times. And sometimes Brunny, like, nuzzles him and stuff. Its really cute. But they aren't kissing or sex or anything else... while they're in love?"

Beau shrugged her shoulders, "Well, Jester you know not everyone needs to or whats to do those kinds of things. They're just the kind of people who don't, I guess. They seem happy, right?"

The cleric turned to look down at Beau and nodded a bit. 

"Then they have everything they need." The monk shrugged again. "Its never the same for anyone. Their 'in love' is just a little more different than most. I guess you could say rarer."

"Rarer." Jester hummed, "I like the sound of that. And you know what Beau?"

The monk cocked an eyebrow up at her, waiting.

"That thing you said about a monster being a really cool guy with the pince thing? I bet you could give that idea to Brunny sometime and he could make a really good story out of it. His stories really are the best."

"Definitely better than the dipshit princess stories." Beau huffed and sat up a bit to try and look at Jester's drawing. "What are you gonna do when the its full? The journal?"

"I guess get a new one." Jester shrugged. 

"But what'll you do with _that_ one?" The monk insisted. 

Jester paused in adding the details to the drawing and shrugged her shoulders again. 

Beau frowned in concentration. "What if... what if Brunny said it was okay... if we tried to get it published? So other people could read it?"

Jester cocked her head, looking over at the sleeping couple. 

"Cause, like, these kind of stories might actually help somebody. Yanno? Like Brunny's stories really make you think and the characters care about actual stuff and not just treasure and getting married to a prince and stupid shit like that. His stories could... matter. Maybe help somebody someday, you know?"

"That's a really good idea, Beau!"

The monk perked up, sitting up a bit. She couldn't help it, some deep part of her still hungered for approval and validation. "Yeah?"

"Yeah yeah yeah!" Jester said excitedly. "I can do all the illustrations! Caleb knows everything about books, maybe he knows what we'd have to do."

"We can ask." Beau agreed. 

"Do you think Brunny will say its okay? He gets kind of shy when we try to get him to tell stories around strangers." Jester worried her bottom lip. 

"I think thats mostly because he worries about how he talks, Jess." The monk picked at a loose thread of the edge of the pillow. 

"Whats wrong with how he talks?" Jester's brows dipped. 

"Not a damn thing." Beau smiled softly at her. "Besides, what he actually says means more than most people say in their whole lives."

**Author's Note:**

> A little low key, relaxed softness for the boys. Sometimes you just need a nap.
> 
> I do like doing little perspective things like this sometimes. 
> 
> Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed it!


End file.
